Sustainable Challenge 2024: Carnival of Insurrectionist Couture
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Discover the result of the fashion creation marathon for Spanish, Dutch and British students, six sustainable looks with a decolonial perspective.
On November 16th, the fashion show of the 6th edition of the Sustainable Challenge took place, under the title “Carnival of Insurrectionist Couture, a Decolonial Practice”. A group of 30 fashion students from Spanish, Dutch and British schools accepted the challenge of creating sustainable looks with a decolonial perspective and presenting them to the public.
The fashion show was the culmination of a fashion creation marathon that took place between November 14th and 16th at the Disseny Hub Barcelona. This edition aimed to make participants reflect on the urgency and possibility of finding strategies to interrupt the extractive dynamics of racial capitalism in the landscape of the crisis of unsustainability that fashion is going through. The 30 participating students formed mixed teams accompanied and advised at all times by experts in decoloniality and fashion: the project curators, Lucía Piedra Galarraga, Roberte Piqueras and Frank Trobok, together with Sofía Archer, Karim Adduchi, Lizette Nin and Roshni Kavate. (You can find information about all of their careers and decoloniality in fashion on the project website, as well as an interview with the curators)
The students designed the garments based on the use of discarded clothing provided by the Roba Amiga association, creating unique garments with added value.
Below, we present the looks created by the six student teams, which can be seen in an exhibition at the Disseny Hub Barcelona in the first quarter of 2025.
The Sustainable Challenge is an initiative of MODA-FAD, with the support of the Barcelona City Council and the Disseny Hub, the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the collaboration of the Embassy of the Netherlands.
Photographs: Laura Encursiva
Hair and makeup: Itziar Nzang
Courtesy of Fucking Young!
ROSANA TEAM
Members: Louis Roman, Daniela Corleto, Mariama Ed Daoudi, Susana Martínez, María Rey.
Model: Rosana Ehizele Ozgul.
Key concepts: To flourish, to transform.
Project description: This team explores the symbolic connection between flowers and transformation, highlighting blossoming as an act of resistance against oppressive systems from a decolonial perspective and in harmony with nature.
BELLA TEAM
Members: Alizeh Ahmad, Mera van Boxtel, Nicole Betancourt, Ignacio Ortolano Rodríguez, Leady Marcela Calle Cristancho.
Model: Bella Mena.
Key concepts: Community, bond, community rituals.
Project description: This design celebrates community bonds and rituals as spaces of resistance and collective care, reclaiming the practice of weaving communities as an anti-capitalist and anti-racist tool.
PAULA TEAM
Members: Rhodel Mintah, Lolitha Molhoop, Macarena Cianciarulo, Jana Pujol Montiel, Claudia Torres Lopez
Model: Paula-Adjo Soli
Key concepts: Identity, empowerment, fluidity.
Project description: Inspired by the fluidity of identities, this group proposes designs that break binary barriers and exalt individual empowerment as resistance to colonial and gender norms.
JOURDAN TEAM
Members: Laura Lambert, Lylia Staykova, Úrsula Suarez Bazo, Elisa Legórburu, Laura Armili Palmero.
Model: Jourdan McDaniel
Key concepts: Identity, textures, green.
Project description: This group reimagines the relationship between body and earth through a sensorial game with textures and shapes, proposing a fashion that embodies processes of change and rebirth, challenging the rigid structures of colonialism.
HABTAM TEAM
Members: Zimin Wang, Xyantyisairah Burger, Samuel Bomboko, Ioan Sagaan Alb, Maria Fernanda Moreno.
Model: Habtam Broenn Castiñeira.
Key concepts: Roots, identity, community, struggle.
Project description: Through their design, they claim roots and ancestral memory as a transformative force, emphasizing community struggle as a path towards social and decolonial justice.
VIOLETA TEAM
Members: Pranita Jampal, Inez Carmen van Kessel, Karola Keusch, Javier Domínguez, Ana Ramirez Gallego.
Model: Violeta Silvestre.
Key concepts: Community, roots, struggle
Project description: This group focuses its work on collectivity and roots as resistance, interweaving elements that tell stories of struggle and resilience against exploitation and cultural erasure.
This is the sixth edition of the Sustainable Challenge. The project is based on MODA-FAD’s commitment to work to provide solutions in favour of the environmental and social sustainability of the fashion industry. In this sense, the project is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).